Gov. Herbert’s apology to Utah’s LGBT community

Late Spring of 1982. I was living in the University of Utah’s Ballif Hall dorm and had found a very cute fellow Ute I wanted to “get to know better.” My roommate was in our room, and cute boy’s mother was at his house. So, two 18-year-olds drove in a red 1967 Mustang up to the top of Salt Lake’s Capitol Hill and “parked.”

I’m sure many 18-year-old “couples” drove up there to “see the sights.” But, we were two boys.

We kissed. We touched. We did much of what any of today’s PG-13 movies or TV-14 television shows blaze across their screens.

And then a Salt Lake City Police Department vehicle came up the road and parked behind us. We scrambled to look presentable and waited for him to come to the door.

“What are you boys doing up here?” the officer asked.

“Just thought we’d come up and look at the valley,” I said — which was a truth, but not the whole truth.

“Well, we got a call from one of the neighbors that some boys matching your description were burglarizing some houses up here,” he said — which was an obvious, outright lie.

“Why don’t you step out of the car so I can talk to you,” the officer said. I complied and then he asked, “Why is your shirt untucked?”

“I like it that way,” I said, — which was a truth, but not the whole truth.

“My, why are your eyes so glassy?” He asked.

“They are always like that,” I replied. My first full truth.

He had me put my hands on the trunk of the car and frisked me. He then did the same routine with my “friend.”

He then took our driver licenses, returned to his car, and drove off. No, seriously, he drove off. He was gone for 20 minutes. My guess is he went far enough away so we couldn’t see him, but close enough to catch us if we decided to run.

We panicked, but stayed in the car and waited. And waited.

Twenty minutes later, he came back.

“Yeah, I showed your licenses to some neighbors and they think you are the ones,” he lied.

He had us get out of the car, individually, again and frisked us, again. He then went back to his car and I could see him, from the rear-view mirror, talking on his radio and laughing.

He finally came back, gave us back our licenses and said not to come back up there again. And then he left.

I related this story, years later, to an officer who was assigned, at his request, to be the SLCPD liaison to the gay community. Then-Sgt. Dave Ward was one of the most honest and straight-forward men I’d ever met. He hadn’t a gay bone in his body, but was as comfortable with us as anyone could ever be. I’d been working with him for about six months at this point as the leader of the LGBT Anti-Violence Project.

Dave’s eyes darkened and he looked at the floor as I finished my story.

This grudge I’d had against the police softened in an instant. It didn’t go away, because it was he who was sorry. Not the officer who did this. Not the department, but a helluva-nice-cop who sincerely was sorry this happened to me.

It meant something to me. It meant something big.

I remembered this story as I was watching a video of the Premier of Victoria, Australia, the honorable Daniel Andrews MP, making a speech on the Victorian Parliament floor, where he apologized for the wrongs that the Victorian government had done to LGBTI citizens in that country.

I got thinking — would this kind of apology be possible in Utah? Could Gov. Herbert make such a speech on the floor of the Utah Legislature?

Here is what such an apology would sound like, if made in our fair state, using Andrews’ words. Please read in Herbert’s voice:

Speaker – it’s never too late to put things right.

It’s never too late to say sorry – and mean it.

That’s what brings us all to the heart of our democracy here, in this Legislature where, over the course of decades, a powerful prejudice was written into law.

A prejudice that ruined lives.

A prejudice that prevails in different ways, even still.

That law was written in our name – as representatives, and as Utahns.

And that law was enforced by the very democratic system to which we call ourselves faithful.

So it is our responsibility to prove that the Legislature that engineered this prejudice can also be the Legislature that ends it.

That starts with acknowledging the offenses of the past, admitting the failings of the present and building a society, for the future, that is strong and fair and just.

In doing so, Speaker, we’ll have shown this moment to be no mere gesture.

In doing so, we’ll have proven that the dignity and bravery of generations of Utahns wasn’t simply for naught.

And that, I hope, will be the greatest comfort of all.

Speaker, there is no more simple an acknowledgement than this:

There was a time in our history when we turned thousands of ordinary young men into criminals.

And it was profoundly and unimaginably wrong.

That such a thing could have occurred – once, perhaps a century ago – would not surprise most Utahns.

Well, I hold here an article that reports the random arrest of 15 men.

“Police Blitz Catches Homosexuals”,the headline reads.

And said a police officer:“…we just seem to find homosexuals loitering wherever we go.”

This was published in Salt Lake City’s biggest-selling weekly newspaper – in December 1976.

A decade earlier, in 1967, a local paper said that a dozen men would soon face court for – quote – “morals offenses”,and urged the public to report homosexuals to the police with a minimum of delay.

A generation earlier, in 1937, Judge MacIndoe said John, a man in his 20s, was “not quite sane”, and sentenced him for three months on a charge of gross indecency.

In 1936, Jack, a working man from Sale, faced a Melbourne court on the same charge – and he was sentenced for ten years.

This, Speaker, is the society we built.

And it would be easy to blame the courts, or the media, or the police, or the public.

It is easy for us to condemn their bigotry.

But the law required them to be bigoted.

And those laws were struck here, where I stand.

One of those laws even earned the label abominable.

And in 1961 alone, 40 Utah men were charged with it.

In the same year, a minor offense was created that shook just as many lives.